Culture Wars Era - is it moving into its final phase?

[Eric the Green]

Poor Warren; he feels the need to defend millionaires. The cost of living, and God knows, those taxes, is such a strain on folks who make half a million $ a year. Gee whiz, if I worry about these poor folks, I don't even have to worry about folks who have no jobs.....

[Marypoza]

(01-23-2017, 04:01 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:50 PM)Marypoza Wrote: -- I would be happy with just a 6 figure income

-- italics, yours

[Warren Dew]

(01-23-2017, 08:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Poor Warren; he feels the need to defend millionaires. The cost of living, and God knows, those taxes, is such a strain on folks who make half a million $ a year. Gee whiz, if I worry about these poor folks, I don't even have to worry about folks who have no jobs.....

And you feel a need to defend billionaires.  Sad.

[Eric the Green]

(01-23-2017, 10:14 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 08:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Poor Warren; he feels the need to defend millionaires. The cost of living, and God knows, those taxes, is such a strain on folks who make half a million $ a year. Gee whiz, if I worry about these poor folks, I don't even have to worry about folks who have no jobs.....

And you feel a need to defend billionaires.  Sad.

Me? ha ha.

[pbrower2a]

Culture Wars get really nasty with President Pence.

We are entering the worst four years of American politics since the Civil War... -- and that leaves much allowance for the Gilded Age.

[Eric the Green]

(01-24-2017, 11:35 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-24-2017, 08:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Culture Wars get really nasty with President Pence.

We are entering the worst four years of American politics since the Civil War... -- and that leaves much allowance for the Gilded Age.

With Pence, culture wars would be worse, geopolitics, economics, etc, etc, better.

Although Pence is a theocon he's not one of the enfants terribles who want to destroy the post WW-II and post Cold War orders, per se. He's a theocon but not Al-Right.

All in all, Pence would be similar in some ways to what we would have seen with President Cruz.

True, except that economics would not be better. He's a typical trickle-downer, just as he spoke in that Maddow show clip. Trickle-down doesn't trickle; it tinkles. Trump may actually be better than Cruz or Pence on the economy. Typical hard-right conservatives like Cruz and Pence are latter day Coolidge and Hoover, and the results of their policies is depression.

The only virtue in getting Pence instead of Trump, through impeachment or whatever, would be that Pence is not a popular hero, as Trump is as indicated in Trump's chart. Trump is a good speaker who can arouse people behind him. Pence is a big dead stick. Pence would be easier to beat in an election year that will be hard to call, and that Trump is more-likely to win than not if he runs (depending of course on who the Democratic nominee is). And yes, that's the bottom line-- for Democrats to win and Republicans to lose. Our republic depends on it at this point.

[The Wonkette]

(01-23-2017, 12:50 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:12 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 02:58 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 02:19 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: They don't.  They put out tax plans that help everyone, and the Democrats reinstate the taxes on everyone but the billionaires.

Bush passed the last big tax cuts.  When it came time for them to end, they were preserved for everyone except those who made more than 250K, who saw their tax rates return to the 1990's levels.  The next result was taxes were raised on those high income folks.  I should know, I sold a bunch of stock (which boosted our income for that year to the top bracket) and we to write a big check because I had forgotten about this and not adjusted our extra withholding higher.

Are you a billionaire?

If not, your pretensions to being "rich" are bogus.

If so, you need to get some tax advice from other billionaires, because they certainly aren't paying the top tax bracket, or in fact any bracket at all.

Do you mean that the "rich" only consists of billionaires and not mere multimillionaires like Romney, Madonna, and the Clintons?  That is a novel definition.  Or do you have another definition of "rich"?

I would guess that Mikebert is a mere millionaire, as is about 7 percent of the country now.  A million dollars is still a good chunk of change.  Of course, I could be wrong; maybe he has more cash cached away.

-- I would be happy with just a 6 figure income

I always thought that a millionaire was someone with a net worth of $1 million or more, not an income of $1 million or more. There are people with very modest incomes who end up as millionaires because of clever or lucky investments or home appreciation.

[Warren Dew]

(01-24-2017, 02:08 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:50 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:12 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 02:58 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Bush passed the last big tax cuts.  When it came time for them to end, they were preserved for everyone except those who made more than 250K, who saw their tax rates return to the 1990's levels.  The next result was taxes were raised on those high income folks.  I should know, I sold a bunch of stock (which boosted our income for that year to the top bracket) and we to write a big check because I had forgotten about this and not adjusted our extra withholding higher.

Are you a billionaire?

If not, your pretensions to being "rich" are bogus.

If so, you need to get some tax advice from other billionaires, because they certainly aren't paying the top tax bracket, or in fact any bracket at all.

Do you mean that the "rich" only consists of billionaires and not mere multimillionaires like Romney, Madonna, and the Clintons?  That is a novel definition.  Or do you have another definition of "rich"?

I would guess that Mikebert is a mere millionaire, as is about 7 percent of the country now.  A million dollars is still a good chunk of change.  Of course, I could be wrong; maybe he has more cash cached away.

-- I would be happy with just a 6 figure income

I always thought that a millionaire was someone with a net worth of $1 million or more, not an income of $1 million or more.  There are people with very modest incomes who end up as millionaires because of clever or lucky investments or home appreciation.

That's the definition I was using, certainly.

[Marypoza]

(01-24-2017, 02:08 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:50 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:12 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 02:58 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Bush passed the last big tax cuts.  When it came time for them to end, they were preserved for everyone except those who made more than 250K, who saw their tax rates return to the 1990's levels.  The next result was taxes were raised on those high income folks.  I should know, I sold a bunch of stock (which boosted our income for that year to the top bracket) and we to write a big check because I had forgotten about this and not adjusted our extra withholding higher.

Are you a billionaire?

If not, your pretensions to being "rich" are bogus.

If so, you need to get some tax advice from other billionaires, because they certainly aren't paying the top tax bracket, or in fact any bracket at all.

Do you mean that the "rich" only consists of billionaires and not mere multimillionaires like Romney, Madonna, and the Clintons?  That is a novel definition.  Or do you have another definition of "rich"?

I would guess that Mikebert is a mere millionaire, as is about 7 percent of the country now.  A million dollars is still a good chunk of change.  Of course, I could be wrong; maybe he has more cash cached away.

-- I would be happy with just a 6 figure income

I always thought that a millionaire was someone with a net worth of $1 million or more, not an income of $1 million or more.  There are people with very modest incomes who end up as millionaires because of clever or lucky investments or home appreciation.

-- ok throw in house & l'm worth 6 figures. But l was thinking of a paycheck

[sbarrera]

(01-24-2017, 11:35 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-24-2017, 08:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Culture Wars get really nasty with President Pence.

We are entering the worst four years of American politics since the Civil War... -- and that leaves much allowance for the Gilded Age.

With Pence, culture wars would be worse, geopolitics, economics, etc, etc, better.

Although Pence is a theocon he's not one of the enfants terribles who want to destroy the post WW-II and post Cold War orders, per se. He's a theocon but not Al-Right.

All in all, Pence would be similar in some ways to what we would have seen with President Cruz.

Trump and Pence really are a bizarre pair to be leading the country right now. I am still reeling a little from their winning the election. It's the reaction to their rule (the resistance, if you will, or lack of one) that will tell where the Culture Wars settle. Even if they accomplish destroying the federal government programs they oppose, and instituting Trump's dream of a walled-in police state, they won't necessarily win hearts and minds. The big question -  will it all blow up in their face and they will be the last trace of white supremacist Jesus-or-else America? Or will they succeed in pushing the country in their direction, perhaps with an ample supply of alternate facts at hand?

[David Horn]

(01-25-2017, 07:14 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Trump and Pence really are a bizarre pair to be leading the country right now. I am still reeling a little from their winning the election. It's the reaction to their rule (the resistance, if you will, or lack of one) that will tell where the Culture Wars settle. Even if they accomplish destroying the federal government programs they oppose, and instituting Trump's dream of a walled-in police state, they won't necessarily win hearts and minds. The big question -  will it all blow up in their face and they will be the last trace of white supremacist Jesus-or-else America? Or will they succeed in pushing the country in their direction, perhaps with an ample supply of alternate facts at hand?

This is the singular issue for now.  In 6 months we'll know if this has legs or is just another political wet dream.  We should all keep in mind that the left is notoriously poor at this sort of thing, and the Tea Party has shown that the right is quite adept.  Even playing with fewer potential voters, the Trump-GOP alliance can still win in the long term -- long enough to finish what they're starting at least.

[Eric the Green]

Although the Left has been poor at using the system, and the Right has been good at rigging it, Obama had the upper hand for a while in electioneering. This happened after the Right showed its power in 2004 in this respect. The Left may be poor at this stuff now, but it has to learn, and probably it can.

[Eric the Green]

There will have to be a major convergence of Democrats and liberals on the Rust Belt. I guess they should wear hard hats

[sbarrera]

(01-26-2017, 03:44 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: The key for the Left (and for that matter, the Center, and even, the Center-Right) to win again is to be unafraid to embrace the Hard Hats. Learn their world. Live it. Learn why they have the mindset they have. In a small way, become a bit of a Hard Hat.

Does that mean a bit of casual racism, sexism, and homophobia? That will be a hard sell for a lot of people.

[David Horn]

(01-23-2017, 06:34 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 03:55 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Are you a billionaire?

If not, your pretensions to being "rich" are bogus.

If so, you need to get some tax advice from other billionaires, because they certainly aren't paying the top tax bracket, or in fact any bracket at all.

The very rich hide all or most of their income outside the US or in corporate structures that are designed to reduce taxes.  This is nothing new, and had been the case for decades.

And people need to be reminded of it every time the issue of "tax the rich" comes up, because if we actually wanted to tax the rich, we'd prevent this.

Prevent what, exactly? 

[David Horn]

(01-23-2017, 06:46 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 03:43 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:37 AM)Galen Wrote: ...  The real problem with the tax cuts is there is no corresponding reduction in spending which is a problem both major parties have.

While there hasn't been a reduction in spending in absolute terms, any increase in spending pretty much stopped in its tracks after the Republicans took control of the House in 2010.  That allowed spending to decline as a percentage of GDP from 25% to 22% in the six years since.  Granted that's still way too high.

There is a correlation between spending restraint and Republican control of the House.  There isn't any visible correlation with control of the Senate or the Presidency.

Nice selective reading there.  The outlays rose to their high against GDP when the GDP dropped in the Great Recession.  Here's a chart:

Your chart proves my second statement, about the decline as a percent of GDP.  But there's still the first half of my statement, about how it stopped growing in absolute terms independent of GDP:

It's not me that is reading selectively here.  I'm just addressing both ways in which people might want to look at it.

Government outlays always rise to offset at least some of the general economic decline during a recession.  Some of it is automatic, like unemployment insurance, and some is legislated.  Add to that, the decline in revenue due to lower incomes and reduced economic activity, and you get huge deficits.  That's a feature of proper government, not a bug.

[David Horn]

(01-23-2017, 07:02 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:12 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 02:58 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 02:19 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: They don't.  They put out tax plans that help everyone, and the Democrats reinstate the taxes on everyone but the billionaires.

Bush passed the last big tax cuts.  When it came time for them to end, they were preserved for everyone except those who made more than 250K, who saw their tax rates return to the 1990's levels.  The next result was taxes were raised on those high income folks.  I should know, I sold a bunch of stock (which boosted our income for that year to the top bracket) and we to write a big check because I had forgotten about this and not adjusted our extra withholding higher.

Are you a billionaire?

If not, your pretensions to being "rich" are bogus.

If so, you need to get some tax advice from other billionaires, because they certainly aren't paying the top tax bracket, or in fact any bracket at all.

Do you mean that the "rich" only consists of billionaires and not mere multimillionaires like Romney, Madonna, and the Clintons?  That is a novel definition.  Or do you have another definition of "rich"?

The billionaires are the only rich that really matter in terms of effect on the economy.  Last I checked, Buffett was 180 times richer than Romney, but paid an effective tax rate 90 times lower.  Anyone who actually wants to tax the rich has to address that mismatch, and has to address the billionaires.

Come on, it only takes the richest 8 people in the world to match the net worth of the bottom 3,500,000,000 people.  How come the Democrats aren't going after those 8, or at least the 4 or so that live in the US?

Because the Democrats protect the actual rich people, of course.

This is a bizarre reading of history, because the big tax cuts on the rich have all been GOP programs: Reagan, then Bush-43.  Attempts to end the GWB cuts by BHO were opposed by the GOP House.  So how does that reconcile with the Democrats protecting Billionaires?  The Dems are far from innocent, but they don't own this problem.

[Warren Dew]

(01-26-2017, 09:39 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:34 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 03:55 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:28 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Are you a billionaire?

If not, your pretensions to being "rich" are bogus.

If so, you need to get some tax advice from other billionaires, because they certainly aren't paying the top tax bracket, or in fact any bracket at all.

The very rich hide all or most of their income outside the US or in corporate structures that are designed to reduce taxes.  This is nothing new, and had been the case for decades.

And people need to be reminded of it every time the issue of "tax the rich" comes up, because if we actually wanted to tax the rich, we'd prevent this.

Prevent what, exactly? 

Prevent the billionaires from protecting their money against taxation, of course.  If we really wanted to tax the rich, we would focus on the rich that hold most of the money and pay the least in taxes, which is the billionaires.  Anyone who ignores the billionaires does not really want to tax the rich, no matter what rhetoric they use.

[Warren Dew]

(01-26-2017, 09:48 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:46 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 03:43 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 10:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 04:37 AM)Galen Wrote: ...  The real problem with the tax cuts is there is no corresponding reduction in spending which is a problem both major parties have.

While there hasn't been a reduction in spending in absolute terms, any increase in spending pretty much stopped in its tracks after the Republicans took control of the House in 2010.  That allowed spending to decline as a percentage of GDP from 25% to 22% in the six years since.  Granted that's still way too high.

There is a correlation between spending restraint and Republican control of the House.  There isn't any visible correlation with control of the Senate or the Presidency.

Nice selective reading there.  The outlays rose to their high against GDP when the GDP dropped in the Great Recession.  Here's a chart:

Your chart proves my second statement, about the decline as a percent of GDP.  But there's still the first half of my statement, about how it stopped growing in absolute terms independent of GDP:

It's not me that is reading selectively here.  I'm just addressing both ways in which people might want to look at it.

Government outlays always rise to offset at least some of the general economic decline during a recession.  Some of it is automatic, like unemployment insurance, and some is legislated.  Add to that, the decline in revenue due to lower incomes and reduced economic activity, and you get huge deficits.  That's a feature of proper government, not a bug.

While automatic spending increases were a small part of it, the main driver of the increased deficits was ill considered pork barrel spending initiatives that delayed the recovery for years by displacing more productive private sector spending.

[Eric the Green]

That's a strange idea you came up with there, Warren. Usually people think that some spending increases would stimulate the economy by putting people to work and money into the economy.

There were indeed huge outlays to pay for people suffering from the recession caused by Reaganomics in 2008. And the tax cuts were not rescinded either, except for a small increase 2 years later. That plus the stimulus (which also included tax cuts to please the "Reaganomicians" in both parties), and the decline in tax revenues from the weak economy, inflated the deficit in 2009-2010. Both parties contributed to reining it in later. But Republicans kept the recession going (deliberately, so they could have the issue) by firing lots of public workers in 2011. The stimulus was thus weaker than it should have been, had not Black Tuesday (Nov.2, 2010) occurred.